California bill would ban all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores | Hacker News Reader

California bill would ban all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores

sfstandard.com

29 pointsgnicholas33 comments

> Democratic state Sen. Catherine Blakespear said people are not reusing or recycling those bags. She points to a state study that found the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds per year in 2004 to 11 pounds per year in 2021.

“It shows that the plastic bag ban that we passed in this state in 2014 did not reduce the overall use of plastic. It actually resulted in a substantial increase in plastic,” Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said Thursday.

Unintended consequences are important to consider. I wonder what consequences these legislators might be overlooking in their new bill.

I don't know why, but some grocery stores we go to have paper bags for purchase, and others have thick plastic ones. I assume the paper bags would remain available. I hear they weigh a great deal more than plastic bags (at least the old thin ones), and therefore consume more CO2 when transported.

if my state banned them i'd just buy them online and use them; paper bags are not great, reusable bags are ok, but i use plastic bags for other things after using them for groceries so i'd rather just use plastic bags unless they can bring the cost of reusable bags way down

Just to clarify, do you mean thin so-called single use bags, or heavy bags that are intended to be reusable? I've never thought about buying and bringing "single use" bags to the store (I'm sure I'd get strange looks if I did), but I would reuse them for trash like I do with the bags they sell now.

It would probably result in less plastic used, compared to the heavy bags they currently sell.

I bring the "not quite single use" bags that are common in beach areas or now home delivery back every time.

I probably get 20+ uses out of them before I recycle them at the store.

This along with a backpack I've had for 30 years.

thin single use bags is what I meant yes

Admittedly the thicker plastic grocery bags are somewhat sturdier garbage bags than the old thin ones which would sometimes tear.

That's true — it seems like they're engineered to be able to be reused maybe 5-10 times. But I pretty much always just use them once, as a trash bag. For my purposes (and those of many others here), it seems like it's a waste to make a fairly sturdy bag when it's only going to have one more use.

Cool so I would just buy a roll of 2000 of them on Amazon for like $10 that I keep in the car.

You could also put in about the same amount of effort and do something much more environmentally conscious at the expense of being less childishly subversive. I guess you’ve gotta decide if that tradeoff is worth it.

I wouldn't say they were being childishly subversive -- it is very unclear that paper bags are better than plastic bags for the environment.

"Manufacturing a paper bag takes about four times as much energy as it takes to produce a plastic bag"

"Studies have shown that, for a paper bag to neutralize its environmental impact compared to plastic, it would have to be used anywhere from three to 43 times."

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/sustainabl...

If you're going through the effort of carrying your own bags, why use a disposable bag at all?

Bringing up the harms of a paper bag is not really pertinent.

But they rot and don't end up in the sea.

Hah, this is funny. This is the sort of scathing comment that HN doesn't like and normally I'd be downvoting it also but for once I really agree.

It's not the little guy with his plastic straw that's the problem when the greater majority of waste is coming from the big corporations and dirty nations.

Then to top it off you have billionaires like Taylor Swift who uses their private jets to fly a 15 minute trip instead of taking a 25 minute car ride.

Give it another 50 years and the little guy will need to be eating bugs to be environmentally conscious while the people on top still do exactly what they did before.

Pissing off hairshirt environmentalists is always worth it on principle. A bunch of their policies are more about annoying humans than being more ecological.

eg. hyper efficient slow as molasses dishwashers are such a pain to use they prompt people to hand wash instead of using a dishwasher, which uses noticeably more water than somewhat more wasteful, but fast and effective dishwashers do. The EPA doesn't care.

I do this with individually-wrapped plastic straws because I can't stand the texture of the paper ones on my lips

I bought a sturdy arm-carry shopping bag (with multiple sections and some padding), and it really is nice to have. That thing can hold several disposable plastic bags worth of goods, it’s more comfortable to carry, and it’s definitely not going to break. I use it all the time, and it makes me more willing to go shopping on foot.

I can credit California’s current bag policy with this purchase. I felt guilty buying the common reusable plastic bags and throwing them away, but also didn’t like the experience of reusing them. Paper bags break. A solid fabric bag really is a lot better.

How often do you clean it? With my reusable bag, I end up individually bagging my meat purchases to avoid cross-contamination with fruits/vegetables.

At the time the first ban was passed pressure from customers has already driven the creation of rapid decomposition plastic bags that would disintegrate under UV (likely creating micro plastics, but hey, who's perfect).

The industry was slowly self correcting. People were free to do what they want (what a nasty word "free"). And some people used paper, other plastic. Then the government started to "help". First they banned paper because "the trees" of course, leaving plastic only, then they "banned" the plastic. Which of course was never a ban, yet a tax that just really nailed the poor more than anyone else. (NICE BONUS!!).

So now you would pay .10 a bag. And who knows where that massive amount of money went! Another government compelled transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest! (SUPER BONUS!!). And what did the environment get for all this devious underhanded corrupt dealing? Surely at least the goal was met! NO! Old mother nature got THICKER bags that likely will outlast the heat death of the universe (MEGA SUPER BONUS!).

OH but people were supposed to _bring_ bags, don't you see! It was the nasty "free" people at the end of the day that mucked it all up again! But it turns out reusing bags is really bad for your health! You would have to clean and disinfect the bags every time to prevent the spread of harmful mold, bacteria, and whatnot. Which in turn is far more wasteful and harmful to the environment than the reusable thin plastic.

So it seems the ultra thin fast decomposing bags were likely the best bet. Good luck reprogramming the public to buy that! But no no no, why stop a dumpster fire when you got it good and going, we're going to have YET ANOTHER GOVERNMENT LAW TO FIX THE FIRST TWO (three? Was it three?) GOVERNMENT LAWS!

This time they got it! This time for sure it's all going to go well.... or, perhaps, let's make a prediction now. We moved from 8lbs per year per person to 11lbs in just under 20 years thanks to these laws. Here's a prediction: this is not a logarithmic curve, this one's exponential baby! We're going to take it up to 20lbs/person in the next decade! Let's do this!

Do you think they have a policy against bringing a tub in? I'd just as well like to grab one of those hip hugger laundry baskets to pack my groceries around in. Maybe I'll try that some time. Probably won't fly with the CV shit they have on the registers.

Why were we using bags in the first place?

I mean, they could probably give away those shitty little hand totes anyways, and at least they'd be easy to clean up if they were littered, but exceptionally easy to recycle.

Here in Austria most people seem to use reusable bags for groceries. The mold issue is overblown and not an issue. You sound like someone who has never used a reusable bag.

I think the bigger problem is that all the food is packaged in so much plastic, so it doesn't really matter much because the bags are just a small fraction of the total plastic.

> The mold issue is overblown and not an issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reusable_shopping_bag#Food_saf...

Here's 8ish citations that seem to disagree. I guess they could be wrong, I'd love to see your evidence to the contrary. All I've read says it's dirty and common sense seems to agree: you don't wash something, it gets dirty. Stick dirty stuff in it, it gets dirty.

And yes, I don't use reusable bags, down right unsanitary. The insides of product shipping containers are disgusting. That's what's rubbing on the insides of your bags.

Totally agree with the use of plastic at all. I think paper is a great. It does have a problem with permeability so some places need another solution, cellulose? But damn the plastic, and the damn plastic bags, I ask for paper. Trees are a great renewable resource. And you can make cool hats for kids when you're done, let's see you do that with a plastic bag!

Try testing your bags to see how dirty they are and if you want your food rubbing up against all that. Do a white paper towel test at least.

1) I do clean the bags. The plastic ones I wipe when they get dirty. We also have cotton shopping bags, I just put them in the washing machine.

2) Who cares if you can detect E coli or whatever in the bag? It's not like I put raw meat loose in there. Most of the food I buy is packaged, or I wash it or peel it before eating.

I am begging somebody to investigate and study or point to any existing ones regarding the use of plastic bags to shit in. I'm just curious about the obvious corelation and I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

many readers here do not know a time without plastic bags, plastic wrap, and plastic in the gutters, streams and parks. There is no comparison between the world today, and the world without plastic bags littering "everywhere". If it were only visually awful, that would be one thing, but they are not only that. Small animal life of all kinds die die to these things, in the water and on land. Drastic comment? morbid? but actually true. $0.02

I never understood the laws that replace this bags with thick bags you pay for.

They should replace free this bags with expensive this bags. If you want a reusable bag, bring it in with you. The fact you don't have one with you today shows you haven't made the switch, and shouldn't be trusted to do it now.

Yeah, where I am, they simply added the requirement that stores have to charge at least five cents for any bag they give you.

It has greatly reduced the amount of single use bags without the undesirable side effect of thickening single use bags so that they can masquerade as reusable.

We pay 25¢ in Menlo Park, but stores tend to just charge for one or two even if they give you way more than that. It feels like a "deal" to pay on 10¢ in neighboring cities...even though that is of course a terrible deal for a bag.

Are plastic bags from a grocery stores just bike-shedding? I am not asking rhetorically. That's what I suspect, but I really don't know.

If you have a 20oz soda every day, that's 19 lbs a year? Food packaging plastic? Soap/Cleaner bottles? The plastic window in paper mail. Saran Wrap. Plastic from dry cleaners. Plastic from a cold drink at Starbucks or bubble tea. E-waste. Amazon deliveries. Trash bags. Water Bottles...

It seems poorly thought out to have an environmental fight over something that likely barely matters when there are elephants in the room that need to be taken care of before real climate progress can be made.

I don't even think the bag fee in some states goes to the government. I think it's just money pocketed by the grocery store owner, which seems like an even more grim capitalist corruption and clear conflict of interest.

Why tax consumers, when you could tax the companies making the bags and let them pass the cost to consumers? Same effect, much better alignment, much fewer conflicts of interest. Ten cents is nothing and easily passed on to consumers, so why not make the tax the actual cost of environmental reparations?

If I were an entrenched billionaire trying to prevent meaningful environmental progress, a highly visible, inconvenient, and and what seems likely to be inconsequential issue like grocery bags seems like a dream come true. Diffused responsibility for outcome means no one is responsible for the outcome and it means no one powerful enough to say "no" has to be battled with.

Main difference between plastic bags and several of your other examples are the others are PET and are highly recyclable relative to things like plastic bags.

While I don’t disagree with taxing production of these products to price the externalized costs in to them, I imagine they would still want a bag fee.

No grocery store wants to be the first to start charging for plastic bags, so they’re just going to handle it like any other increase in their costs… price it in to margins on their products. (When fuel taxes go up the grocery store doesn’t start charging a transportation fee or something, right?) Now we have a situation where no individual customer’s choice will directly benefit them, and in fact the rational choice would probably be to keep using the plastic bags since you’re paying for them already!

By exposing the cost directly to the consumer instead of having it lost in the middle of all the other price increases we’ve become accustomed to, they’re at least _aware_ of how their behavior is influencing costs and can take clear, simple actions to avoid those costs on an individual basis.

> I don't even think the bag fee in some states goes to the government

This is the case in CA, at least in the areas I've lived. The grocery store is selling us bags at 25¢ a pop. Undoubtedly the highest margin in the entire store!

We banned them in New Zealand.

Total bullshit without any cost/benefit analysis.

Like many, I now buy plastic bags for bin-liners. Total number of plastic bags used is the same!

Even worse: so many people I know need bags when shopping: they buy them and throw them away. The cost of the substitutes (one time paper, or multi-use plastic) is fucking mental.

Apart from the wasted time, and wasted purchases from dropping an unbagged bottle on the ground.

I'm certain the environmental cost of the policy is way higher than the environmental cost of plastic bags.

Yet I suspect the policy is very popular, with a bunch of people that don't seem to understand reasonable compromise.

Pass the bill. Make paper available. Allow plastic 'bags for life' - Move on

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